TV

The Box of Delights
Part 4 The Spider in the Web
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
5x01 The One After Ross Says Rachel [5th or so watch]
5x02 The One with All the Kissing [5th or so watch]
5x03 The One Hundredth [5th or so watch]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x04 Episode 4

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
3x05 Week 1: Sunday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
6x03 Trouble in Paradise

Shetland
9x03 Episode 3
9x04 Episode 4
[Watch series 9 (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week. And as this update is the 'end of year' one, there are some numbers for that too. Ooh, exciting!

Number of titles in collection: 3,446 [up 6 this week; up 235 in 2024]
Of which DVDs: 992 [no change this week; down 29 in 2024]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,454 [up 6 this week; up 264 in 2024]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 419 [up 2 this week; up 98 in 2024]

Mostly bigger than last year (235 new titles bests 220), but not quite as big as the years before that (241 in 2022 and 240 in 2021). On the other hand, UHDs were virtually identical to last year, when I purchased 99, so it looks like I'm pretty consistent on that front now (all previous years were lower). Maybe next year they'll cross the 100 threshold. Basically two a week, every week? Well, you never know. Radiance are getting into the UHD game next year, so that could help.

Number of discs in collection: 8,312 [up 9 this week; up 477 in 2024]
Number of films: 4,366 [up 9 this week; up 419 in 2024]
Number of additional cuts: 426 [up 1 this week; up 76 in 2024]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [no change this week; up 188 in 2024]
Number of short films: 1,197 [up 2 this week; up 88 in 2024]

Discs are slightly up on last year, but films have increased loads — 419 this year is far higher than 298 last year, and solidly up on 385 and 363 in the years before that. I'm guessing more box sets with more films on fewer discs.

Total running time of collection (approx.):
583 days, 20 hours, and 10 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 9 hours, and 13 minutes from last month.)
(Up 31 days, 12 hours, and 33 minutes from last year.)

That's a whole week bigger than 2023's yearly increase, and the largest since 2020's (which was larger by about 19 hours). Should I be proud, or should I be intending to cut back? I'm never sure...

Well, whatever — more stuff is on the way! As ever, see you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Box of Delights
Part 3 In Darkest Cellars Underneath
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x23 The One with Ross's Wedding Part 1 [6th or so watch]
4x24 The One with Ross's Wedding Part 2 [season finale; 6th or so watch]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x03 Never Mind the Buzzcocks Does the 90s

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
3x04 Week 1: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
9x01 Episode 1
9x02 Episode 2
[Watch series 9 (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Blankety Blank
4x01 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x21 The One with the Invitation [5th or so watch]
4x22 The One with the Worst Best Man Ever [5th or so watch]

From Roger Moore with Love
Another one on the "is it a film or TV?" nexus, because apparently it had a theatrical release earlier this month.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
3x03 Week 1: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Death in Paradise
13x00 Christmas Special 2023
At this point, I have a suspicion I'm always going to be a year behind with this show...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Michael McIntyre's 25th Year Stand-Up Special
He's not everyone's cup of tea (because he's massively popular and therefore some people just have to dislike him), but McIntyre remains a remarkably funny standup for someone who's been at it so long.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x02 Episode 2

Outnumbered
Christmas Special 2024
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
3x01 Week 1: Monday
3x02 Week 1: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
6x02 The Hammer
The show's 100th episode. So not a Christmas special, but still kinda special.

TV

The Box of Delights
Part 2 Where Shall the 'Nighted Showman Go?
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who
41x00 Joy to the World [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Gavin & Stacey
The Finale [series finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

QI
22x09 Variety (XL version) [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Bad Tidings
Is this a "film" or a TV special? Well, it's a TV movie, more or less (it's properly feature-length, not just an hour long; and it's in 2.39:1, which used to mean something but doesn't really anymore), and I've counted TV movies as films in the past, so I guess it counts. (It doesn't really matter, especially as I've completed my new-style 100 Films Challenge this year, but it does affect whether I (intend to) review it on 100Films.co.uk and whether it counts towards my annual statistics there.)

The Box of Delights
Part 1 When the Wolves Were Running
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x19 The One with All the Haste [5th or so watch]
4x20 The One with All the Wedding Dresses [5th or so watch]

Gavin & Stacey
A Special Christmas [2019 Christmas special; 3rd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x10 Xmas Special [season finale]

Would I Lie To You?
18x00 At Christmas
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
The Adventure of the Generous Miser
December 25th Part Three: The Investigation
December 26th Part Four: The Conclusion
And because I've already read Dr. Watson Takes the Case, that makes this the end.

TV

Doctor Who: The War Games in Colour
Following last year's The Daleks in Colour, here's the second in what seems intended to be an annual series of Classic Who colourisation/re-edits. This time, the Second Doctor's final serial (which, coincidentally, I watched for the first time earlier this year) is truncated from four hours to just 90 minutes. More thoughts here.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x18 The One with Rachel's New Dress [5th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x80 Redemption Week 1: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
6x01 Strike Back

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
The Skull (translated by Sarah Death)
This story is very nearly the best in the book, but then it takes a religious turn at the last second. I actually didn't mind the other Christianity-focused stories that are included, but this one has a nicely creepy "Ghost Story for Christmas" vibe until it's undercut with warm-hearted moralising. Oh well.


Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
The Adventure of the Generous Miser
December 23rd Part One: The Mysterious Carriage
December 24th Part Two: The Case

Crimes for Christmas ends with a four-parter, in order that it can conclude on Boxing Day — that's expressly the reason given in the introduction. Yeah, I know: advent calendars don't end on Boxing Day. It seems the Britishness of it as an occasion fascinates this American author, so he felt the need to stretch to it, somehow. But, as I said, advent calendars don't end on Boxing Day, so I'm reading this story in two "double-bills" so that it finishes tomorrow, as it should.

TV

Blackadder: The Cavalier Years
It’s just a sketch for a charity telethon (they haven't even bothered to upscale it for the Blu-ray, just included it in SD), and yet it creates a whole era of Blackadder, has a proper plot, runs the length of half an episode, and features at least one of the best gags in the entire series (at the level of “gets used in retrospective documentaries to illustrate the Baldrick/Blackadder relationship”). Splendid.

Friends
4x16 The One with the Fake Party [5th or so watch]
4x17 The One with the Free Porn [5th or so watch]

The Rookie
5x22 Under Siege [season finale]

The Wheel
5x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

X-Men #3 by Jed MacKay & Ryan Stegman
I started with such good intentions, but — surprise surprise — I'm now in desperate need of catching up. Well, I'll try. (I'm enjoying these books a lot, it's just my general rubbishness at keeping at things!)

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 22nd: The Christmas Ripper (Conclusion)

For some reason, Belanger seems to be almost obsessed with the word "missus" (as in the colloquialism for "wife"). Someone's clearly told him it's how Brits regularly refer to their/others' wives, and so he's applied it liberally — it's not just in the dialogue of coppers or urchins, but of respectable types, and he has Holmes use it; he uses it in his narrative text too, which is almost more egregious. I double-checked in case it was me who'd misunderstood, but I was right: the word "missus" appears in Conan Doyle's original works precisely zero times. (Is this the worst of Crimes for Christmas' sins? No, but it is a consistently grating niggle. Or a hilarously misguided quirk, depending on your point of view.)

this week on 100Films.co.uk

1 new review was published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

it was nominated for two BAFTAs, although it won neither: it was one of several still-acclaimed movies that lost Best Film from Any Source to a British film (Room at the Top) that also won Best British Film (do I smell bias?), and Samoilova lost Best Foreign Actress to the lead from that same film (hmm…) Next time someone tries to claim awards have become meaningless, maybe suggest they always have been.

Read more here.


There may or may not be more next Sunday, but there definitely will the week after, because then it will be time to get stuck in to my review of 2024!

TV

Blackadder's Christmas Carol
My Blackadder (re)watch fell over for no particular reason back in March (I've been meaning to resume it ever since, but without serious-enough intent to ever make it happen), but I'm jumping out of sequence now because otherwise, if/when I do resume the rewatch, when I get to this special I'll likely feel the need to pause again until whenever next Christmas is (at least a year from now, obv). Besides, it doesn't really matter if I watch them out of order. And this is one of the few episodes I'd never seen, so finally ticking it off was part of the purpose of the rewatch anyway.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Casualty
39x07 All I Want for Christmas [Christmas special]
Didn't intend to watch this, but the TV was still on (see The Wheel) and I ended up half-watching enough of it that I stuck with it even after I finished wrapping.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman
Been meaning to watch this since it first aired in 2015. It's ridiculous how long it takes me to get round to things... Anyway, it's a lovely overview of a great British institution, with plenty to cover so that its hour-long running time never runs out of steam. If anything, a little more detail in some places wouldn't hurt; and, of course, it's now nearly a decade out of date — an update bringing us into Aardman's "Netflix era" wouldn't hurt. Though maybe it should wait until that ends, which it surely will, similar to the Dreamworks period...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wheel
5x10 Episode 10 [season finale]
Didn't actually intend to watch this — and I only half-watched it, really — because I put the TV on to find some music to wrap presents by, this was just starting, and I got somewhat sucked in. But, as I say, I only half-watched it, so it'l be interesting to see if I can still remember the answers when I watch it 'properly'.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
[3rd watch]
[#100 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

For the first time since I initiated my new-style 100 Films in a Year Challenge in 2022, I've completed it! Hurrah! And what a quality note to end on. Can't wait for Vengeance Most Fowl on Christmas Day.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 21st: The Christmas Ripper

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

The final pre-Christmas update of 2024 sees seven new titles added to my collection, but you wouldn't immediately know it from the numbers below. That's because there's a DVD-to-BD upgrade (of a box set that previously contained nine films, but now has 12) and two BD-to-4K upgrades (one of which adds a pile of discs, an alternate cut, and a bonus feature film).

Number of titles in collection: 3,440 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 992 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,448 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 417 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,303 [up 17]
Number of films: 4,357 [up 13]
Number of additional cuts: 425 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,195 [no change]

Once upon a time, Christmas would've been one of my busiest disc weeks of the year. Nowadays, I might not even get any. Find out which way the pendulum has swung next week, faithful reader.

Films

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
[#99 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2024 #12